These sold like crazy when we first got them in 2016, and the website has been out-of-stock for well over a year.

I was fortunate to be at the right place at the right time in Tucson in 2017 and picked 20 more wonderful Palm Stones.

The sparkle in these pieces is just breathtaking, and even though not inexpensive they are well worth the investment. The last one in the list is really something to behold and really should be in our display case.

Well, Derek took me to Tucson again this winter and we came home with some amazing mineral specimens. I am still sorting and processing these, but Kathi and I did finally find the time to put up some wonderful stones that we acquired in Denver last year.

The new additions cover five varieties of simply beautiful Palm Stones, including some minerals that are very hard to come by.

We had to sneak into a wholesale show three days early in order to acquire these amazing soap shaped stones from Indonesia. If we had waited until the show officially opened they would have been gone.

These are the nicest Bumble Bee Palm Stones that we have seen. The colors, patterns, polish and workmanship are simply outstanding. We got the best of the best that the dealer had to offer, and now we have them available to our online Kathi’s Krystals family.

I picked out over 100 of these last summer, and pulled the best pieces to add to the website. The Stones have beautiful translucence, and they are the cleanest Blue Aragonite pieces that we have ever had.

Also known as Pinolith, this mineral comes only from Austria, and displays a rare mixture of Dolomite, Graphite and Magnesite. The small white flecks in the grey/black matrix look like pine kernels or little seeds, and the literal translation of Pinolite means “pine stone”.

We have just added 700 new Tumbled Stone items to the store! The new selections cover 65 varieties of minerals, including 19 varieties of Tumbled that we are able to offer for the very first time.

Adding Tumbled Stones to the website is, by far, the most difficult and time-consuming task we have in terms of stocking the store.

I started this project on May 1 of this year, and finally handed off over 3,000 photos to Kathi on October 1.

My part of the job entails:

Pulling what I consider to be harmonious sets of stones,

Numbering and listing on paper all of the sets for Kathi’s future use,

Measuring and weighing the stones in each set,

Pricing the selections,

Photographing each set of stones, and

Cropping all of the photos (this is mind-numbing work).

This is the single largest addition of Tumbled Stones that we have ever undertaken, and the process was overwhelming for me to be sure.

Kathi then takes all of the information and photos that I provide to her and methodically, over months in this case due to her being able to do only a little work on a day here and a day there because of her medical situation, adds the information and pictures to the website.

The various programs that she uses for making the website as amazing as it is turned those 3,000 pictures into 7,000 pictures in total… thumbnail photos, gallery photos, and lightbox photos (the big ones) for all of the 700 sets.

We firmly believe that the result of these efforts offers our clients an opportunity for perusing and selecting stones that is unmatched anywhere on The Internet (Where else could one find 32 sets of Tumbled Emerald Stones from which to choose?).

Without further ado and starting with the first time ever varieties, we have:

One of the most beautiful minerals from Russia, this likely will be the last as well at the first time that we have these amazing stones. The Seraphinite mine is apparently either dead or close to dead, which explains the scarcity of this material on the market.

Named after the highest order of angels (The Seraphim), to many the white chatoyant material in Seraphinite reminds them of the lacy look of angels’ wings.

We recommend that these stones be very near the top of your shopping list.

From Austria, this natural combination of Dolomite and Magnesite shows a beautiful color contrast of black/gray and white. The white Magnesite kernels in the mineral are thought by some to resemble pine nuts, thus leading to the stone’s name.

The stones are very clean with a nice polish, and these would make a nice gift for any rock enthusiast.

This Indonesian mineral has to be one of the most unusually colored materials out there. The combination of bright orange with black, green, gray, or even sometimes white, results in a stone which is hard to ignore. As production from the mine has progressed in recent years, different patterns and color combinations are beginning to appear on the market.

We do not have much of this very hard to find mineral from The Congo. The tumbled stones are somewhat rougher in texture than we would normally look for, but having seen these available only one time from one dealer, we are grateful to have what we have. On the other side of the scale, the coloring in these stones is really gorgeous.

Although we have had Mixed Fluorite stones on the site for years, we have not had ones like these.

These pieces are primarily yellow with a variety of other gorgeous colors mixed in. If for no other reason, visit the link just so you can see the beautiful pictures… I love photographing these beauties.

Locked away in German for 20 years, this material made its way to our favorite South African dealer, and then to us. The quality of the Amethyst is extremely high, and the form of the stones, with the clear tooth point, is just amazing.

If you have never looked at these rare beauties, please do. The bang for the buck with these specimens is as good as it gets.

We have not been able to obtain any old-stock material for two years now, and the small amount that we have left will probably be it.

This is Dodo Bird stuff, and if you don’t spring for it soon, chances are you will not ever have the opportunity. Almost everything being offered online as Ocean Jasper is, well, basically garbage, and lots of it is not even Ocean Jasper at all.

Six new sets of this high-demand mineral are up on the site. Getting lots more very high quality Pietersite will be at the top of my shopping list in Tucson… I will just have to find the gentleman who owns the one and only mine.

It just gets increasingly difficult to get high quality specimens of this incredible mineral from Argentina. Our favorite Rhodo dealer passed away recently, and our thoughts and prayers are with Odi and his family.

We have been told that this material is very close to being mined out. The two sets of tumbled that we have added is the last of our inventory of Tumbled. If you are a Ruby fan, I highly recommend taking a look at these wonderful stones while there still are any to be had.

Over the years we have purchased our tumbled RF from only one dealer, Dr. Arvind Bhale. We were told recently that he experienced very serious medical complications resulting from a fall. He was not at the shows in Tucson and Denver, and we sure hope that we have the pleasure of visiting with him again.

He has always had the highest quality Ruby in Fuchsite, and we fortunately still have a decent supply in inventory. We added 13 new sets to the store.

Many years ago we were able to acquire Pietersite Palm Stones, but have not seen any available for at least 5 years. We have since come to learn that the rough material for these stones most likely came from a mine in the Hunan province of China…. a mine which apparently stopped producing years ago.

I looked all over Tucson for Pietersite with no luck. I had just about given up hope, and then we ran into the owners of the only producing mine in the world. The mine is in Namibia, Africa, and the material is just incredible.

The dealer did not have Pam Stones, per se, but did have bags of the most gorgeous tumbled Pietersite that I have ever seen. He had it in sizes from small to extra-large.

I spent a couple of hours looking through the kilo bags of extra-large tumbled, and realized that many of the stones could easily serve as Palm Stones for the store.

I bought three kilograms of the beauties, and already wish that I had purchased much more seeing how these have sold like crazy here at the shop.

We have listed 35 of the very best out of the over 300+ stones in the pile, and suggest that those interested take a look sooner rather than later. We expect that these rare and exquisite specimens will move rather quickly.

Many of the ones listed would make gorgeous pendants, and we have sold many already to buyers with just that purpose in mind.

Almost 10 years ago we picked up a few kilos of the most gorgeous Blue Lace Agate Palm Stones imaginable, expecting that they would last us for a very long time.

Well, I guess that they did, but not long enough. We ran out of these in the last year or two, and had not seen any similar pieces available since our original purchase.

Amazingly, when I walked into the tent of the same dealer from whom we got the stones almost a decade ago, there she had a few bags of AA grade stones that had just been put out for sale.

I gobbled up 5 kilograms of the stones, and I think that they might be even nicer than the original ones, and those were drop dead gorgeous.

I came home with about 320 of them, and picked out 32 of the very best to put on the website. I cannot adequately communicate how wonderful these stones are. These Palm Stones certainly are no less than jewelry grade, and would make beautiful pendants for those of you who are into wrapping stones.

One of our most popular items, we had been out of these for quite some time. Silver Sheen looks like black glass until held under a light. Then it looks like the most beautiful starry night that one has ever seen.

We get all of our large soap-shaped Obsidian Palm Stones from one dealer. He has the highest and most reliable quality specimens, and Derek and I went to his booth six times to make sure that we got there when he was first ready to sell. I bought 50 of his 60 stones in different varieties.

Again from the same dealer, these amazing stones display gorgeous colors and movement when the stone is shifted around under a bright light source. I photographed them under 2 100 watt equivalent daylight spectrum bulbs.

The dealer had only 4 of these worth buying, and we have added all of them to the Velvet page.

We had six days of shopping from early morning to early evening, and came home with lots and lots of new treasures.

Among the new arrivals are:

AA grade Blue Lace Agate Palm Stones. For the first time in about 8 years, we found beautiful BLA stones. These are a little smaller than the ones that we acquired years ago, but just as gorgeous. I grabbed five kilos of these the minute that I saw them.

Pietersite! We were very lucky to find the owner of the only producing Pietersite mine. He had bags of outstanding tumbled stones, and a few of these bags were filled with extra-large stones. While not flat and symmetrical like most Palm Stones, we will be listing many of these in this category simply because they are so wonderful and so large.

Fifty more Olivine slabs

Awesome Agate and Amethyst spheres.

Beautiful tumbled Wavy Turquoise.

Lots and lots of wonderful Hearts.

29 of the most beautiful shimmering Amazonite Palms that I have ever seen.

We got first crack at the dealer who has the most beautiful large soap-shaped Obsidian stones. I bought 50 of his 60 offerings, including Gold Sheen, Silver Sheen, Spider, and Velvet varieties.

Rough Sulfer (as yellow as yellow can get), rough Green Tourmaline in White Quartz, a couple of awesome Smokey Quartz pieces, lots more Moldavite, and on and on.

We will slowly be adding these newbies to the store. In the meantime, if you would like photos of any of the above, or would like to know if we picked up something that you are hoping to find, please just ask.

ADDENDUM

The current plan is to add a limited number of new Palm Stone varieties, and then move on to restocking and adding lots of Tumbled Stones.

I will be headed to Tucson in three weeks to buy at the biggest rock, mineral, gem and jewelry show in the world. If you are not familiar with the event, you might enjoy the Tucson Photo Essay that we have on our website. I think that we are the only people who have ever presented such a piece

This year will be a little different and sad for me.

Kathi’s chronic pain condition has gotten so bad that she will not be able to go to the show. I am not able to drive due to visual impairment, and Kathi has always taken us in the past, even though over the last few years it became almost an impossible effort for her

We would have to take an extra rest day in Santa Fe so that Kathi could spend the day sleeping in order to be able to make the rest of the drive. Then, most often at the shows I would have to do almost all of the buying myself while Kathi either rested at the hotel or tried to sleep in the car.

It has finally become beyond Kathi’s ability to do Tucson, and I will miss having her there with me, as going to the Tucson Show is as much a tradition for us as any other event in our lives.

Fortunately, our elder daughter’s boyfriend has very generously offered to take time off of work and spend ten days with me on the road.

We love Derek to death, and this will be his first time experiencing anything like Tucson. He has been studying up, and I expect that the two of us will have a very interesting and fun time.

Kathi and I could not be more grateful for him stepping in to help us keep our passion going, and someday he just might wind up keeping the family business living on.

If there is anything special that you would like me to look for for you in Arizona, please let me know. I usually do lots of special shopping for clients, and looking for requested items always adds to the adventure of the experience.

Worry Stones, in general, are the red-headed stepchildren of the mineral world. Manufacturers most often take the worst of the worst material and turn it into Worry Stones. One can often walk into a tourist rock shop and find a basket of them selling for only a few dollars apiece.

We know of only about three dealers who offer Worry Stones which meet our quality standards, and every stone on the site has been hand-picked by Kathi or me.

The newly added ones are, except in one case, all restocks of existing categories, several of which had been empty for quite some time due to the difficult nature of finding quality pieces.

We had not been able to get any new Lapis Worries for a few years. This was due primarily to China importing and holding onto as much rough Lapis as possible. This situation seems to be loosening up some as a result of the downturn in the Chinese economy. We have listed 17, and hope to find more in Tucson in a couple of months.

Also out-of-stock for quite some time, we now have 10 nice ones available. Just a precaution for those who may not be aware…any Howlite offered in the market that is any color other than white with the gray inclusions has been dyed.

For those of you who may have thought that Kathi and I had fallen off the face of the Earth, that, fortunately, is not the case.

Because of surgeries earlier in the year, as well as other medical issues, we have been slow in addressing the needs of the website, and apologize to all of our clients who have been waiting so patiently for us to restock the store.

However, we could not be happier to announce that we have just finished adding 1,131 new Palm Stones to the site covering 79 different mineral varieties.

I started this project on May 1, and handed 5,500 photographs over to Kathi at the beginning of August. She has since been mistressing the website to the best of her ability given the terribly debilitating nature of the severe Fibromyalgia from which she suffers. Kudos to her for struggling through the process of this update.

The project is finally finished, and we could not be more excited.

This is going to be one long post, so I will try to break things up into groups for easier digestion.

I have one favor to ask before we get started.

If you notice anything on the website that does not seem to be correct (e.g, missing photo, wrong photo, missing or wrong text, incorrect link, or anything else), please send me an email to let me know of your discovery. There are now so many thousands of pictures on the site, and so many links, it is almost impossible to avoid a few errors no matter how hard we try. Thank you.

Here we go!

New and Exciting Finds… These are stones that we have never had before and that we are absolutely thrilled to now have in the store.

From India, and among the most sparkling stones that we have ever had the pleasure to offer, when I first saw these I thought that this material just had to be man-made… not true. I saw a huge piece of the rough material.

These Fuchsite pieces are just loaded with green Mica that shines like crazy!

Fuchsite is, by nature, a very soft mineral, and these stones have been stabilized like many other soft minerals in the marketplace… Turquoise possibly being the most well-known for this type of treatment.

We have very little room left in our personal display case, but we had to find a place for one of these stones.

Again, we have included videos of each stone so that you can see them at their very best.

These slices of Sugilite as it normally forms in Manganese are just incredible.

We have never seen these before and bought all that the dealer had. The stones have a mirror polish and many show layers of other minerals as well… in particular, Hematite, Richterite (blue), and Bustimite (red).

In our direct selling, clients’ jaws have dropped when seeing these Sugilite wonders, and I would consider one of them to be a must for any lover of this pricey and highly-prized mineral. I don’t know if we will ever have the privilege of acquiring these again.

This past winter in Tucson was the first time that we had ever found Ruby in Zoisite Palm Stones. These soft rectangles are just gorgeous with the dark green Zoisite and inclusions of real Ruby.

One thing to note is that, because Ruby is much harder than Zoisite, as is often the case with this mineral variety the Zoisite portions of the stones have a deeper polish than the Ruby portions. If the Ruby was polished hard enough to bring out a bright shine, portions of the Zoisite would likely be ground into oblivion.

Of special interest is that, just as with any stone containing true Ruby, the Ruby portions of these stones glow a brilliant red under long-wave ultraviolet light, and we have included UV photos with the listings of the individual pieces.

One season, several years ago, many of the dealers from Madagascar were offering opaque Green Opal stones. These stones are gorgeous and we have several listed on the website.

Recently we found one dealer who had a quite gemmy variety of this Green Opal material. I photographed our pickings outside holding them up near the sun (yes, my arms are 93 million miles long) so that you can better see the beautiful translucent nature of these wonderful examples of true Green Opal from the third largest island in the world.

We were really excited when we found our favorite Madagascar dealer offering these amazing stones.

Some sellers may be offering this material as Rubellite in Quartz, Rubellite, however, means different things to different peiople, often referring to a very special subset of Red Tourmaline, so we will not be using the term with these stones.

Either way, these represent a great new form of Tourmaline for us and our clients, and we are very happy to be able to add them to our family of Palm Stones

We just got these at the Denver show this September, and if I had ever seen this material before I didn’t know it.

These incredible stones are a variation of Obsidian that is similar to Rainbow Obsidian, but very different.

Velvet Obsidian (also called Seafoam and Peacock Obsidian) shows gorgeous color under bright light, but the color is somewhat mottled such that one can actually see into the glass, and when the stone is moved under the light one gets the sense of movement in the stone as the light plays into and off of these lighter and darker areas of color.

Another difference is that many of the stones exhibit color even when not under the bright light, although nothing like when they are.

For best viewing I recommend either a Halogen light or, even better and cheaper, a simple 100 watt equivalent daylight spectrum curly fluorescent bulb… we use these for showing both Kathi’s jewelry and the rocks in our “warehouse”, and they do a great job.

NOTE: Any white spots that you see in the photos are bubbles in the Obsidian. The stones are perfectly smooth with perfect reflection. One cannot feel the white spots.

Fluorite stones are hard to buy if one cares about quality, because the material is often chipped or cracked. We got these from a dealer who takes care to present “at risk” stones in a nicely protected manner, and these hand-picked beauties are very clean and really pretty.

I photographed them in front of a daylight spectrum bulb to show the color and translucence, but even so they are prettier in person than in the pictures.

When I took my selection of these beauties to the dealer table for purchase (we have bought from this dealer for almost a decade), the manager of the operation told me that he thought that I was going to buy them given our appreciation of the unusual

We have two very different forms of this fabulous variation of Obsidian from Jalisco Mexico.

First is a large selection of big soap-shaped stones. I hand-picked each one of these and they are just awesome. Of course they have a polish like glass… because they are glass.

Second is a smaller selection of tumble-polished flat stones. Amazingly, some of these show alternating thin bands of clear material such that looking through the stones is like looking through window blinds. We had never before seen this characteristic in Mahogany Obsidian.

It is basically petrified mud, but is known for portraying amazing landscape scenes resembling desert terrain with or without blue sky. There are often tree-like patterns, mountains, and even sun- or moonrise patterns.

These are the last of a few hundred incredible stones that we purchased about 8 years ago. If we had only known at the time that we would not see them again we would have taken every bag that the dealer had.

The Rest… These are all of the other new additions that are basically adding to existing stock or restocking stones that have been showing as “out of stock” for some period of time. I may, with some, add a short comment.

That does it for the largest single addition to the website in our history.

Kathi and I are well aware that many other categories in the store need restocking, and we will get to them just as quickly as we can. In the meantime, we have most everything in stock that is showing not so on the site. Please just ask if there is anything that you would like me to photograph for you.

Thanks for visiting this blog, and we hope that you enjoy looking at many of the new stones.

As always, if you have any questions or there is any way in which we can be of assistance, please do not hesitate to email or call. Without all of you, there is no way that we could have the privilege of doing what we do.

We have just added 424 pouches of new tumbled stones, covering 35 mineral varieties, to the website. The majority of these new additions are stones that we have never had before, so this is a really special addition for us. I will put an * on all of the new varieties and noteworthy additions to existing listings. Also, I will mention those stones that fluoresce under UV light.

In no particular order, here are the new offerings which include 2,994 new stones!

All handpicked by myself and Kathi, these beautiful stones have wonderful translucence, and a simply gorgeous blue color. Tanzanite is a relatively expensive mineral, and finding high quality tumbled stones is a difficult endeavor. We were able to pick enough for 12 sets for the store.

This incredible material is from Argentina, and is very different from the more usual material normally sourced in Madagascar.

Argentinian Blue Calcite is very gemmy in appearance, and, if you have never seen it, it really is a must have. Some of the stones tend to the green side, but those are just as beautiful as well. We have loaded almost one kilogram of these stones into the store, so there are lots of beautiful sets from which to choose.

We have had these stones in our inventory for years, but for some inexplicable reason we have never before listed them on the website.

What makes our Pink Calcite special is that the stones are extremely unusually clean. This material is often characterized by pits, dark spots, and other natural imperfections. If we are not able to pick them by hand, we put all of the lesser quality stones in the tumbled stones bin for the kids.

Of special note is that Manganoan Calcite glows beautifully under both short- and long-wave ultraviolet light. This pale pink stone comes to brilliant life with orange, yellow, red, and purple hues. It is a sight to behold.

We have listed 10 sets of this highly prized stone. A variety of Spodumene, Kunzite technically refers to only the purple variety of this mineral family, but in the trade all of the various colors are normally sold as Kunzite, so that is how we list them.

The price of Lapis has been going through the roof due to the Chinese importing of this famous and gorgeous stone. Kathi handpicked one pound of new blue beauties, and as one of our favorite dealers said to me, “get em while you can”.

We had never seen these stones until this fall in Denver, and were absolutely amazed!

These are the highest form of Garnet with great color and a gemmy quality. It is hard to photographically show the true beauty of these handpicked wonders, but take my word for it when I say that they are simply awesome.

Dendritic stones are among my very favorites, and we were really happy to find these in Tucson last winter (yes, it can sometimes take us a year to process and list stones).

Dendrites take the form of tree- or fern-like growths in various minerals, and these Agates show great example of this phenomenon. Usually formed of Manganese, dendrites are one of nature’s amazing wonders.

As an added bonus, these stones glow a gorgeous green color under short-wave UV light.

Talk about something special, this variety of Nephrite Jade was mined in Marin County, California.

Even more special is that this stone was a favorite of Princess Diana, hence its common name of Dianite. We see this material being sold at very high prices, likely because of this royal connection, but we are offering it for a very reasonable price considering its relative rarity.

Very popular in the jewelry trade, Larimar is a relatively expensive mineral that is found in the Dominican Republic.

Although the first known mention of this mineral is from 1916, it was basically rediscovered in 1974 by two gentlemen. The stone is named after the daughter of one of these two individuals (Miguel Mendez) and the Spanish word for sea. Miguel’s daughter was named Larissa, and the Spanish word for sea is Mar.. thus, Larimar.

We have been selling palm stones of this incredible material for a few years now, and we have finally been able to add lots of tumbled K-2 to the store.

This stone comes from northern Pakistan near the base of the second highest mountain (K2) in the world.

This mineral consists of a Granite matrix with stains (usually round spots) of Azurite (blue), and less often Malachite (green). We have lots to choose from on the site.

K-2, also known as Ketonite, is very often mistakenly referred to as K-2 Jasper by sellers. The mineral has nothing to do with Jasper, but what often happens in the mineral world is that, early on, a seller will attach an incorrect name to a stone, and that name becomes adopted by the crowd.

If you have never had the privilege of seeing K-2 in person, try to make it a point to do so. It is one of the most unusual stones around: so unusual that when this stone first hit the market it was though to be man-made. Thankfully it is real, and a sight to behold.

Although we have had Blue Topaz for many years and the stones are very nice, we were blown away by the new ones that we grabbed in Tucson last winter.

There are 14 sets of these newer, very gemmy stones which are just awesome. They have been selling like crazy in person, and now we have them available on the website. These could definitely be used to make jewelry, or would make a great addition to any rock lover’s collection.

We had been out of stock of this very popular stone for quite some time. It is hard to find, and when we do, many of the stones in the bag do not meet our quality standards and wind up going into the tumbled stones bin.

The best of the bunch are now up in the store, and I will be surprised if they last for very long.

This is a man-made stone which, in itself, makes this material a very unusual purchase for us. It is so pretty, however, that we just could not resist.

This is natural Quartz that has been heat treated. When Quartz is heat treated like this, it does one of two things…. it explodes or produces these beautiful pieces.

The stones are just crammed with internal fractures which makes for fantastic sparkle, and sometimes even rainbow sparkle.

The surface of the stones is polished off and is completely smooth so the Quartz has a very nice and natural feel.

If for no other reason, kids love these stones, and that makes having them worthwhile.

That completes the new tumbled stone listings.

Moving forward, we recognize that the store is running low or showing out of stock on many of our palm stones. That does not mean that we do not have them in inventory. It is simply a matter of trying to find the time to get everything up on the website.

Maintaining this beast is like painting the Golden Gate Bridge… by the time we get to one end, it is time to go back to the other end and start again.

The Tucson show is coming up very soon, and once we return from that chaos we will get to work on getting the palm stones fully listed again.

Speaking of Tucson, if you place an order while we are at the show, we will send you an email thanking you and letting you know that we are aware of the order but will not be able to ship it until we return.

We will ship all orders in the order in which they were received, and are very sorry for any delay that you may experience. We hope that you view this as a small price to pay in order to have access to the wide selection of high quality and unique stones that Kathi’s Krystals is known for.

As always, we thank you for your support of our efforts, and look forward to bringing you wonderful mineral treasures for years to come.